Oh, Savannah, unless Nadal would drop out of the Top 32, and face Federer in the 1rst round of a Slam, you'll always insist Roger has a cakewalk draw. You don't like the guy, I respect that, but take off the tin foil already!!!

Savannah, just to prove to you that I'm not some fawning Federer sycophant; I don't believe he should be called The Greatest Ever, while he has such a bad record against Nadal and Murray. And I also don't believe he would have won 15 Slams, if Nadal and Murray had been about his own age and come on the Tour at the same time as him. Having said that though, we'll just have to agree to disagree on the matter of the draws being rigged.

Helen W, of course Nadal has a tougher draw this time, but that's just the luck of the draw as they say. And aren't all of you conspiracy theorist out there forgetting that Andy Roddick is in the top half of the draw too? If you're going to insist in believing that the draw was rigged, it could just as easily have been done to benefit him and not Federer. I don't believe that draws are rigged to benefit certain players, but the playing schedules absolutely are, as was clearly evidenced in 2003, when they did everything they could to make sure that Ferrero arrived at the finals totally exhausted, so that Roddick could have his easy win. To this day, that's the most glaring example of interference by a tournament in favor of a player I've ever seen.

Fred66 I am a scientist by training, and do not easily get seduced by conspiracy theories.

Nevertheless, as you yourself point out, the powers that be (TPTB) have consistently shown that they are not above manipulating the schedule of play to favour certain players, so why is it such a stretch to imagine that they manipulate the draws as well?

I agree that in any one draw you can argue that it is the luck of the draw. But when over a series of draws, you start to notice that one or two players are the frequent beneficiaries of soft draws, one can begin to question. For some examples, see my post in another thread.